born in 1965, is a German African studies scholar and historian. He studied history, political sciences and German at Regensburg, Freiburg und Oxford. From 2001 to 2002 he taught at the University of Kiel, and from 2002 to 2004 he was a lecturer in history at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. Zimmerer was a lecturer at the University of Sheffield, and has been a professor of African history at the University of Hamburg since 2010.